


you're a goliath to me

by ag_sasami



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Baku!Takeru, Breaking Up & Making Up, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Fix-It of Sorts, Implied/Referenced Sex, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Nightmares, Pining, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23524912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ag_sasami/pseuds/ag_sasami
Summary: Takeru knows the taste of Yusaku's nightmares, as if falling in love needed to bemorecomplicated.
Relationships: Fujiki Yuusaku & Revolver | Kougami Ryouken, Fujiki Yuusaku/Homura Takeru
Comments: 9
Kudos: 15





	1. lay your burdens on me

**Author's Note:**

> Have some Dream-Eater!Takeru. Context is for the weak, which is to say that I don't have a reasonable explanation for how this happened.

He smells the fear before realizing it’s rolling off of Yusaku in slow waves. Takeru lays a hand discreetly on his thigh under the table, perhaps a bit higher than is strictly necessary in his rush. The dream is fresh and heavy, caught early while it was still warm and sweet. There’s a shock through his body, a wave of electricity and the blinking glow of “You Lose.” He knows this dream by heart, viscerally. The flavor clings heavy and cloying on his tongue. Stiff-backed with an incredulous mouth and narrowed eyes, Yusaku wraps a hand around his wrist. Takeru leans into his space until their shoulders brush, pulls his hand away gently and whispers, lies, “You were starting to snore.” 

When he lifts his head from dangerously close to resting on Yusaku’s shoulder, his smile is genuinely sheepish. He watches the way the tension melts from Yusaku’s shoulders—his efforts to trust made visible—the self-conscious furrow of his brow as he closes his eyes and sighs, “Oh.” 

Beneath the table Takeru’s hands shake in his lap and his arms have gone to pins and needles as Yusaku’s dream washes warm through his veins.

\---

If the number of daymares plaguing Yusaku give any indication of how he spends his nights, it’s no wonder he sleeps through most of class every afternoon. 

“When was the last time you _actually_ slept?”

“I slept yesterday,” Yusaku counters. Instead of taking up his place beside Kusanagi at the computer he slouches against the opposite wall, arms crossed and sullen. If he’s aiming for aloof, disinterested, he misses it by a mile as far as Takeru is concerned.

“He means he passed out on his keyboard for 15 minutes yesterday,” Kusanagi snorts.

“There’s too much to do. And I’m fine."

“You’re not going to be fine if you start hallucinating or pass out on us mid-mission,” grumbles Takeru. _And I’ll be no use if I have to choke on your dreams the whole time_ , he thinks darkly.

\---

For a moment in the darkness Takeru is lost. Disoriented. He’s six and his skin is on fire and he’s choking on his own breath. _Youloseyouloseyouloseyoulose._ He’s 16 and his throat hurts from screaming and he tastes his own tears when he licks his dry lips. 

Takeru counts. Life points. Minutes. Breaths.

He’s alone and disoriented and numbers are still ( _always_ ) the only consistent thing he can focus on through the fear. It takes 2,157 seconds to figure out where ( _when_ ) he is and stabilize his breathing. The clock says 3:18 and the night sky fills his window with no moonlight to cut through the darkness, and it takes 511 seconds to force himself to grasp at conscious awareness. To find reality in the weight of his body. When he unclenches his fists, Takeru registers the sweat-damp sheets sticking to his back, tacky with salt, and he abandons any ideas of sleeping again. After another 124 seconds—when his legs feel steady enough to walk without need of bracing his weight against the hallway wall—he finally stops counting. 

This time when he cries—hunched over, listless arms around his ankles and cheeks propped up by his knees—the warm spray of the shower head washes the tears away before they can streak his skin. Eventually, he unfolds, shakes the numbness from his calves, and goes about actually showering. 

Yusaku looks at him askance as Takeru chugs the rest of his coffee—stashes away the can in his locker until he can find a bin later—brow furrowed, scrutinizing him and failing to be subtle about it. He looks away, closes his eyes and takes a breath before closing his locker and offering Takeru a soft, “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Takeru replies brightly from behind his own locker door, shielding his face as he schools it into something he hopes looks less obviously exhausted.

\---

Takeru catalogs the scraps of nightmares he catches when he’s devouring Yusaku’s fear: vicious laughter and the unsettling glow of pupil-less eyes behind a mask; his arm shredded apart by data; half-starved and shivering on a sterile white floor. 

Flame stretches to peer over Takeru’s forearm. “What are you drawing?”

“A VRAINS avatar, I think,” he replies as he shades around a light reflecting off the curve of the clear mask that haunts Yusaku. “But I can’t place it.”

“Revolver.”

“What?” Every stroke of his pencil makes a soft scratching sound, the details giving form to a near featureless face.

“Revolver. Leader of the Knights of Hanoi.” Takeru sets down his pencil, takes in a slow breath through his nose and blows it out in a short huff.

“Huh. So that’s it.” He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. “Well that’s surprising.”

“Oh? You read about his defeat, did you not?” Takeru confirms with a slight nod. “If I remember correctly,” Flame crosses his arms and leans with a hip cocked. Smug, “that was what turned you from repressed loner to starry-eyed Playmaker fanboy.” 

“Okay, rude.” Takeru takes a moment to pointedly open one eye from beneath his hand to scowl. Closes it again. Drags his fingertips across his forehead and back in a vain attempt to massage out the tension from his brow. “And I did, but—” 

“But then you started stalking Yusaku’s dreams?”

“Don’t say it like that! It makes me sound like a creep.”

“Well.”

“...shut up,” he objects mildly. “Nightmares aren’t usually in any rush to be eaten like his are. Like they can’t wait to get away.” Thoughts catch in wonder: at Yusaku’s willpower and whether he’s driving the escape of his dreams. “It’s not like I’m _trying_ to see them. Mostly,” he adds.

\---

The air is still hot with the last edges of summer, humid enough that even the shade feels sweaty. Takeru digs out his handkerchief from his bag, tries to sound casual when he asks, “Will you tell me about Revolver?” 

“What?”

He wants to say, _He’s been haunting your dreams_. Instead, he wipes the back of his neck as he fabricates a story on the spot. “I had questions. Kusanagi told me that it was your story to tell.” The lies flow like water from a poisoned well over his tongue. Takeru reads Yusaku’s anxiety in the flex of his fingers around the strap of his bag, the dry bob of his throat.

“Um.” Takeru doesn’t push; waits for Yusaku to gather a response. “I want to say no.”

“That’s fine.” Words like steam, rushing out insubstantial and light and burning him as they go. “I won’t push you if you don’t want to talk about it.”

“I wasn’t finished,” Yusaku clarifies.

“Oh, go on then.”

“I want to say no, but I don’t want to keep things from you.” 

Guilt is lead in his gut. “Whenever you’re ready is fine. I can wait.” Heavy and toxic and he doesn’t want to wait.

Flame discourages him from watching the VRAINS footage from the fall of the Tower, advice which goes ignored. Reluctantly, he leaves Takeru to solitude. Leaves him replaying the unsteady footage until he can _almost_ hear the exchange with Revolver. He resigns himself to the despondency apparent on Playmaker’s face. He knows the feeling of teetering at the knife’s edge of hopelessness all too well. Den City is a constant reminder of that fight: to stay on the side of the blade that means you make it through another day.

\---

Takeru sees him standing in a field of white spider lilies. Playmaker’s data cracks. Shatters. Explodes away from Yusaku. Around him, stained glass rains in a corona, sharp edges tearing the tips of flowers as the glass falls. Takeru watches him crumble slowly to pieces among their stalks as he reaches for Revolver’s retreating back. The shredded flower remnants follow his outstretched arm as though they too want to grasp hold of Revolver. Afterimages of the spindly white petals float in Takeru’s near vision when his eyes snap open, wide-awake and short of breath. 

Later, Yusaku frowns at the warm can of coffee in Takeru’s hand, looks at him speculatively but says nothing.

\---

Takeru is soft in the right ways, all the ways Yusaku is not. 

His heart is less scarred-over than Yusaku’s, still vulnerable and open enough to bleed. Takeru stayed trapped among the shrapnel of their childhoods and living in the visceral misery of each sharp edge. Somehow Takeru managed to retain his capacity for empathy. He’s enamored with it: how easily Takeru feels _._ _Everything_. While Takeru let his feelings pour out of all his broken places; meanwhile, Yusaku turned himself to stone. It makes the work of building a shared space between them infinitely more difficult, what with his inability to make sense of his own feelings beyond their shared trauma. Except, he feels the slow loss of his indifference, growing fractionally more present in his own existence every day. All despite his efforts to remain unmoved. 

Everything Takeru does draws him in, and it’s all the evidence he needs that he’s already become invested without ever realizing it was happening. And when Yusaku traces the loose threads of his feelings, notices where he stands amidst all the mess, it’s the shock of cold water. It’s the awareness of how often his stomach twists when worry creases Takeru’s brow at the slightest tell of something amiss; when easy happiness catches in the corner of his eyes; when the weight of his hurt overwhelms his seemingly unassailable optimism. The prospect of caring quite so much terrifies him in ways his nightmares never reach.

His heart feels too big for his chest to think about it. His heart feels too small for all of Takeru to fit. 

\---

When they step out of their respective rooms, the cloying taste of a flashback on his tongue overwhelms Takeru’s efforts to breathe. Thick fear pours off of Yusaku, a syrupy sweet rot of horrors stuck on repeat. He sees Yusaku’s fight for composure: in the white of his knuckles, his dead-eyed stare, his breaths intentional and deep. Whatever efforts he’s making to shut the memories out of his head are failing, and Takeru can’t get the smell of spoiled fruit out of his nose. 

Watching Playmaker fall from his board was already going to haunt Takeru’s own nightmares anyway—the cloud of dust, the defeated slump of his shoulders, the despair overtaking his unflappable composure—so he opts to endure the intense unpleasantness of Yusaku’s dream-fear as well. Stepping into Yusaku’s space, Takeru wraps the arm not occupied by his duel disk around his shoulders and pulls him in a little closer. Touch-starved and vulnerable, rather than fighting it, Yusaku lets his head drop heavy onto Takeru’s shoulder. 

Takeru hears the fading crackle of a data storm, electrical current; winces at the bruising impact of hitting the wall, smashing his chin on the endless white of that awful floor. Swallowing thickly, he suppresses the urge to cough as Yusaku’s mind offers up the terror to him on an endless loop. 

Yusaku’s voice is muffled and uncharacteristically unsteady when he mumbles into Takeru’s shoulder. “I thought I was going to lose.” 

“Yeah, but you didn’t,” he consoles. The dream is sticky, oozing, slimy, and his stomach lurches when he tries to swallow it again. It clings thick to the roof of his mouth, strings down his throat and it is absolutely the most vile dream he’s ever tasted. Yusaku says nothing. Instead, he loops an arm up Takeru’s back, curls fingers over the top of his shoulder and holds on tightly in reply.

The door of the truck opens and Takeru ignores the intrusion when Kusanagi steps up into the back. Remains steady and still, unlike the bowstring tension snapping through Yusaku’s entire body as he goes rigid and his breath catches on an inhale. He hears the abrupt scrape of footsteps stopped in their forward motion before they retreat, exit signaled by the door opening and closing once more. _I’ll have to do better than a burger this time_ , he notes to himself, grateful for Kusanagi’s discretion. 

\---

In typical fashion, Yusaku disregards social norms and tact when he declares, “You aren’t sleeping enough.” 

Startled, Takeru fumbles through all the things he could say in a split second and lands on, “You’re one to talk.” They walk close enough that Takeru is certain Yusaku could feel him flinch. “Anyway, what makes you say that?”

“One.” Yusaku begins numbering off on his fingers. “You’ve started drinking coffee most mornings. That’s not something you used to do. Two. You keep disappearing somewhere in your own head lately.” He slows his stride as they approach Kusanagi’s truck, and his tone is off when he adds, “Normally you give things your undivided attention. And three.” They come to a stop at the Cafe Nagi truck doors. “The rings under your eyes are getting darker,” he observes. A swiped thumb under Takeru’s glasses. It’s an act of bravery, or maybe a lack of situational awareness, when Yusaku traces the bruising beneath his eyelashes. 

“I’m fine,” Takeru protests and it’s weak, strained as it leaves his mouth.

“Are you though?” Yusaku frowns at him.

Each fingertip braced against his cheek becomes a point of hyper-awareness as Takeru’s mind short-circuits on itself. It makes his bones feel heavy with something he doesn’t bother to think about before he folds his hand around Yusaku’s forearm, tugs him forward a fraction, close enough he can feel Yusaku’s breath on his skin.

“If you don’t mind,” he murmurs. Hopes Yusaku follows his intent without Takeru spelling it out for him. Slowly closing his eyes, Yusaku helps cover the distance left between them and Takeru kisses him gracelessly under the cloudy afternoon sky. He kisses like it counts as an answer, as if it could say that he’s not fine—hasn’t been fine since before he can remember—without him actually having to confess it. Yusaku brings up a hand to rest on Takeru’s shoulder, thumb against his neck, and makes no attempt to move away. It enables the easy magnetism of Takeru’s hands to the sharp jut of Yusaku’s hips. 

When he stills his motion, his tentative hold on Yusaku, Takeru’s conscious mind catches up with his reflexive life choices. Before the mounting panic fully sets in, Takeru breaks the kiss and pulls back from Yusaku’s willing mouth. Nervous energy swells in him, shoots through his limbs, and he has to step away from the steadying weight of Yusaku’s hand. Takeru retreats backward a few steps. Yusaku looks at him—mouth ajar, eyes wide—but says nothing. Neither does Takeru. Instead, he turns away, opens the back of the truck and announces himself with a greeting to Kusanagi.

“Isn’t Yusaku with you?”

“Yeah, he’s outside sorting something out.” Takeru lets it roll off his tongue like it was a whole truth as the door swings half-closed behind him. 

“I believe he’s trying to figure out if Takeru ever thinks before he acts,” Flame quips from his wrist.

\---

“Are you sure I can’t drive you home, Takeru?”.

“It’s fine, really,” he insists. “There’s a train stop on my line right by Yusaku’s place.” 

Kusanagi relents. “Get home safe,” he says with a smile before Yusaku shuts the passenger door. Takeru waves goodbye as Yusaku digs around in his bag for his keys. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Takeru hefts his bag over his shoulder, smiles at Yusaku. He’s just turning to leave when Yusaku grabs him by the wrist.

“Do you want to sleep here tonight?” In a disarming turn, Yusaku doesn’t look away when he asks, looking for all the world like he’s practiced his follow-through. The blush that colors Takeru’s face is all radiant heat and surprise.

“I. Yes?” Smooth.

Later the taste of desperation wakes him. Sitting up leaves the sheet draped across his lap, pools it low around Yusaku’s waist and gives Takeru a view of his face in sleep. Skin cast pale in the night-filtered street light pouring through the space between curtains. Takeru brushes his fingers feather-light over Yusaku’s forearm, sees the retreat of stiff white coattails and that familiar shock of improbably red hair, the way Revolver’s earrings catch the light. Dream-Yusaku reaches out, hands coming away full with darkness. Takeru feels the burn of reaching out in vain across the span of his own palm. “ _Don’t go where I can’t follow,_ ” tangles in his throat alongside his heart rather than on his tongue. The words aren’t his. 

The unpleasantly bitter dream oozes lukewarm down his throat, sticky, choking his breath. It isn’t devouring the dream that drives his unexpected chest ache and stinging eyes. Beneath the bleak afterimages and the bitter taste lurks something consuming. A feeling that Takeru experiences as an unfamiliar echo. One that eats away at Yusaku’s raw edges from the shadow of his dreams. 

The bathroom situation in Yusaku’s share house is inconvenient on a good day; it’s worse now as he hurries down the hall praying none of the neighbors are up. The door is blessedly unlocked, empty. He makes it as far as the sink before his stomach turns over. His forearm offers no relief, hot against his clammy forehead as he’s left dry heaving on his knees. By the time he cleans himself up and returns to the quiet of Yusaku’s room the sheets have gone cold. There’s no unobtrusive way to get back under covers on the small mattress and Yusaku stirs as Takeru sits beside him. “Takeru?” A query grumbled against the pillow, eyes barely open, hair gloriously disheveled.

He smiles easily, ignores his sour stomach and says, “Everything’s fine. Go back to sleep.” An errant drop of water slides down his face from his dripping bangs, cool against his flushed cheek. The sensation wakes him further, bends his active thoughts toward the war inside his head. At some point, heavy with guilt and snatches of dreams that aren’t his, Takeru thinks he should probably tell Yusaku the truth.

\---

Boundaries. 

Boundaries are a thing Yusaku understands intimately, viciously. It’s why he doesn’t push Takeru about whatever weight he’s been shouldering alone for months. There are three reasons he’s worried about it though. One. Takeru’s fatigue hasn’t subsided. Yusaku knows he sleeps some; he’s woken to see it enough times now. Even though Yusaku feels like _he’s_ sleeping better in that arrangement lately, it doesn’t seem to be doing anything for Takeru. Two. He seems weary. It’s in the occasional flatness of his voice and the way most of his smiles aren’t reaching his eyes. And three. Yusaku thinks he might be exacerbating whatever it is. 

Sometimes when Takeru touches him, Yusaku catches the way color drains from his face and the poorly disguised way his hands start to shake. That feeling of limbs on fire, electrified… Yusaku knows it well. He knows the way fabric touching skin is too much sensation some days. It hurts to sit. It hurts to stand. Damaged nerves turning pain signals in on themselves until it hurts just to exist. Whatever Takeru is dealing with, it isn’t that. 

It was vertigo the last time. Cold sweat. Takeru had waved him off with a shake of his hand and a weak assurance of, “Dehydrated, that’s all.” 

_You’re lying_ , he thinks but doesn’t reply. Whether he understands it or not, this is obviously a line. So he waits and does not cross.

\---

He can smell the sulfur roiling in the belly of the beast, claws tearing at the air just shy of his skin. Trapped. He’s trapped and there’s nowhere to run and he doesn’t have any cards that can beat it. _Youlose_. Takeru runs; trips over his feet, a headstone; scrambles to get up again when his hands meet flesh. _Youloseyouloseyoulose_. Even as the hellish smell recedes beneath something familiar he can still feel the phantom slice of claws through his back. The fear tears a wail out of his lungs. Raw and aching and he’s bleeding out with his arms held down and pinned to his sides. Or maybe he hit the wall this time and that his muscles already contracted preemptively against the electrical current.

_YOU LOSE._

He braces for the shock to come. Instead, the sensations resolve themselves far enough to register a sibilant noise and someone saying his name. “Takeru, wake up. Remember where you are?” 

What he _remembers_ is an ache down to his bones, the way the pain was so total that even his hair hurt. He remembers someone opening a door. Lights in his eyes and a blanket around his shoulders. There are arms wrapped around him, firm. He remembers this feeling of being held securely, someone carrying him out of that awful place. So he wraps his free arm around the body in front of him in response. Clings to soft fabric over sturdy bones and shakes through great heaving sobs.

When his heart rate settles, it takes 93 seconds to identify the smell of Yusaku’s sheets, the rattling sound of the building’s leaky pipes. “Finally,” relief, spoken into his skin. A comforting hand cradled around the back of his neck. 

“Yusaku?”

“Yes.”

A hysterical sound escapes him when he breathes out. Mortified and with terror still anchored into his spine like briars on soft skin, he bites down on his lip until he tastes blood. It does the work of settling his gasping breaths to something stable, if shallow. Does nothing to fix the way he can suddenly feel the boundaries of his throat as it closes up against his will and how his lungs have collapsed to uselessness. Naturally it would be now that his own dreams take him, disruptive in this quiet space. Yusaku’s unconscious mind was a mess of hellish flashbacks all week and it just had to trigger this one. Of all Takeru’s dreams this is the worst, a fully formed memory that stopped haunting him months ago.

_I can’t keep on like this._

His shirt is stuck to his skin and his forehead is damp with sweat, and any inkling he has to care about it is banished by Yusaku’s utter lack of concern about the mess of him. Takeru shifts until he can bury his face in Yusaku’s neck, feels the arms around him tighten and the soft gust of breath against his scalp. Sleep takes him without warning, exhausted and with the steady rhythm of another heartbeat against him.

He rushes off before Yusaku wakes up. Catches the train home. The note he leaves on the table reads, “Thank you,” and nothing more. 

“That was an uncharacteristically cowardly exit.”

“Please don’t, Flame. Not right now.”

After a commute that feels endless, he falls again to dreaming, this time draped comfortably facedown on his bed. In his dreams the ocean is clear blue. Sunlight filters through the shallow waters before being abruptly swallowed by a void. And in the darkness below he sees red, a flash of gold and faintly hears the tinkle of delicate metal knocking into itself. Revolver is an anchor chained to Yusaku and dragging him to drowning. It’s a different kind of fear that holds Takeru as Yusaku sinks impassively to a depth beyond his reach. 


	2. I can bear all the weight of the world

Kusanagi is humming behind the grill so focused that he fails to notice Takeru’s arrival. Steam half-obscures his face from view and really, it’s for the best since Takeru worries he’ll lose his resolve to face Yusaku properly if anything interrupts him first. Yusaku is squinting at his tablet in the sun when Takeru slides into the cafe chair across from him, blessedly undisturbed. Before he even looks up, Yusaku greets him with, “you left.” It’s not meant to be an accusation, but he glances up in time to see Takeru wince and he wishes for a moment he was better at reading social situations before he crashed into them.

“I’m sorry,” Takeru mumbles, staring down at his hands in his lap.

“He was embarrassed,” Flame chimes in, uninvited. Takeru puts his forehead on the table with a groan.

“Thank you, Flame. That was super helpful.” Chair scraping across the pavement. Takeru tilts his head up, leaves his chin on the tabletop. 

“Give me a second.” Yusaku takes the opportunity to get them coffee and give Takeru space to collect himself. Kusanagi glances at Takeru with his face pressed flat on the table and grimacing at Flame, but says nothing when Yusaku shakes his head before he can comment. He hands the cups across the window counter over the grill, raises his eyebrow pointedly at Yusaku. They’ve known each other long enough for Yusaku to hear the ‘ _fix it_ ’ implicit in the look. 

Takeru sits up properly when Yusaku leans over to set the steaming cup in front of him. Deep sigh. Cup clasped between his hands, Takeru finally looks directly at Yusaku as he settles back into the chair across the table. Yusaku takes a sip, lets it scald him on the way down for the way the pain grounds him.

“So. Your nightmares are keeping you up,” he hazards, bluntly, knowing he’s right but giving Takeru an opportunity to confirm his conclusion. Or deny, maybe. Takeru squirms in the chair. Takes a swig of coffee to avoid answering before looking at Yusaku over his cup with a nod. Fortunately, he had thought about this since he woke up alone with Takeru’s excuse for a note yesterday, rationalized his way through it already. It makes the task of confrontation easier now, with his head caught up to his life choices. Yusaku sets his cup down before closing his eyes and crossing his arms. He asks, “how often?”

“Depends on the week,” Takeru sighs; sidesteps a direct answer, though it seems honest enough. Contemplative silence falls between them while Yusaku fails to come up with something useful to say.

Settling for the obvious, he points out, “there was no reason to leave.” Yusaku watches him from beneath his lashes. Takeru worries his lower lip between his teeth, distracting in a way Yusaku is still figuring out how to navigate. Split and swollen like he’s been doing that for a while, and he doesn’t quite know what to do with the way he wants to chase the motion with his tongue. There’s plausible deniability in the way he shakes his head to clear it before continuing. “I don’t know what you’re dealing with right now,” _because you won’t tell me_ , he doesn’t say, “but I understand the nightmares.”

“I know you do,” Takeru agrees into the steam of his cup. 

Yusaku hunches in on himself a fraction, shoulders collapsing forward and his arms wrapped tighter where they’re crossed. “Being alone makes them harder to deal with. For me at least.”

And they’re still no closer to a conversation about what’s devouring Takeru when he mumbles, “it’s still not something I want anyone to see.” 

Yusaku hums thoughtfully. After a moment he knocks his foot against Takeru’s beneath the table. “I still want to know though.” Takeru turns his gaze back to the table and his smile is small and unfamiliar to Yusaku. Wistful? Bitter maybe. In any case, he dislikes it painted across Takeru’s features. Uncomfortable, sitting there in the heat and all but helpless to do anything for it.

\---

Earth’s voice seems to echo through the truck as the video ends. For all that Takeru expected it to be terrible, watching the Ignis vivisected, even on a screen, makes him physically sick. Cold sweat and acid stomach and it feels like a vice around his heart actually seeing the evidence of what SOL has done. Ai’s grief sets something off in Yusaku too. Magnifies his own outrage. Even so, his outburst takes Takeru by surprise, unaccustomed to Yusaku reacting so strongly to anything. Playmaker, sure. But _Yusaku…_

“SOL thinks Ignis and duelists are tools.” His voice is strained despite his even tone, but the sharp echo of the metal door slammed shut behind him screams out his feelings clearly enough. In his wake they sit breathing in silence, processing. Distressed. Kusanagi agitated and tugging a hand through his hair. After a few minutes Takeru follows Yusaku outside and finds him so deep in thought that he misses Takeru’s approach. When Takeru asks whether he’s okay the surprise written across Yusaku’s face unsettles him. A reaction that he tucks away to unpack later: all the reasons why it’s still so bewildering to Yusaku when anyone offers the least bit of care. Takeru resists the urge to touch him despite the way he wants the contact himself.

“Go Onizuka and Earth aren’t your fault.” The comment makes Yusaku flinch, subtle though it is. Always piling guilt upon himself as though saving them all is a responsibility he could possibly shoulder. As though even their paired strength could manage all that weight. The conversation takes a turn for something almost uncomfortably intimate—a future they believe in and quiet goodbyes none of them want to share—and the risk of catching the edge of a nightmare strengthens his resolve to keep hands to himself. Even without the taste of fear, the thought of feeling even a little more present—more alive—in all their grief might be just a bit too much. For both of them.

\---

Despite how trivial classes feel in light of their looming fate, Takeru can’t escape the impulse to make up for his years of disappointing his grandparents. Which is to say Takeru is growing mildly worried about his grades and wheedles Yusaku into working with him. They are ostensibly studying: Yusaku, half-heartedly scribbling work on his tablet while Takeru destroys the end of his stylus between his teeth. Gnawing absently at the plastic while he ignores Yusaku’s ever-increasing distraction from his screen. Working on a tablet is a struggle for Takeru on a good day. Today is _not_ a good day with guilt—about falling short of his grandparents’ expectations, of hiding what he is and what he’s done—boiling in his stomach and Yusaku’s stare growing heavy. He’s not letting on that he’s noticed Yusaku watching him intermittently; resolutely ignoring the frown slowly turning his expression a shade dark in Takeru’s periphery. 

Eventually it becomes too much and Takeru blurts out, “I haven’t been honest with you.” Trust is a touchy thing for Yusaku. Knowing this, Takeru is mildly ( _understatement_ ) terrified he’s about to demolish this thing they’ve propped up between them down to its foundation. He can imagine the nightmare as though it was already his own: _a bridge, burning between them. Torched through and spreading to engulf the soil down to the roots of their friendship._ Between the sight of Yusaku’s unreachable back through smoke and the unyielding white terror of his childhood, Takeru isn’t sure which would be a worse way to lose sleep. 

Yusaku sets down his stylus, expression shuttered when he looks down at Takeru from where he's sitting beside him on the bed. “Explain.” He is briefly grateful that Yusaku approaches everything like ripping off a band-aid, or the abrupt admission might have doomed the conversation from its start. 

Takeru averts his eyes, stares down at the bedspread instead of Yusaku’s intensity and prays the bed will swallow him whole. “It’s _your_ nightmares keeping me up,” slowly, “not mine.” 

Yusaku blinks owlishly, like he’s processing the words and failing to translate. “What?”

Anxiety swells as his mind hits the edge of the yawning expanse between here and Yusaku’s understanding. “Well, the nightmares are technically mine, mostly,” he starts, climbing up from his stomach to sit at the edge of the bed with feet dangling above the floor. “But they’re only so bad because yours have been a mess.” 

When Yusaku stares at him blankly Takeru slips off the bed to pace. Presses back on the silence, desperately trying not to ramble out every nervous thought plaguing him. He stops to hold Yusaku’s gaze because looking away feels like another lie. _That_ cowardice he abandoned in the miles retreated from a village by the sea. A breath. A plunge over the edge. “I’ve seen your nightmares," he takes another breath that fails to calm him any before he lets it all go. "And I feel like I lied by not telling you, and I’ve had to actively lie to keep it from you. I haven’t lied about anything important, just little things, you know. Like, when I asked you about Revolver? I told you I had asked Kusanagi which I definitely did not do. But it’s _not_ a little thing that I took advantage of your trust and—” 

Yusaku holds up his hand which silences Takeru abruptly in his panicked confession. There’s white noise in his ears, the blood pressure of his jackrabbit heart. He takes steadying breaths through the manic energy shaking through him while Yusaku turns over the information silently. 

_In._

_Out._

He watches, from a lightheaded distance inside himself, the familiar way Yusaku moves as he thinks. How he takes his own turn to lever himself up from the bed to pace; hand clenched in a fist but for a considering knuckle—bone-white with tension—pressed to his upper lip, Yusaku’s other hand tucked under his elbow in support. 

_In._

_Out._

Takeru feels far away. He can’t measure Yusaku’s expression. Anger? Unhappiness? Frustration? Dissecting Yusaku’s pensive state has always been a challenge, thoughts masked behind something detached and scowling. There is no luxury of emotional distance here anyway to pick through the tells to know where his feelings fall.

“First of all,” he finally speaks. A demand, despite the patience of his tone, “what do you mean you’ve seen my nightmares?” _In._

Before the exhale, before he musters an answer, Ai interjects from behind them, “he’s a baku.” _Out_. Propped on his arms and leaning over the edge of Yusaku’s duel disk where it sits abandoned on the desk, he is unusually helpful if intrusive. Takeru freezes. Forces himself to move until he finds his way past Yusaku to collapse in his desk chair. The effort of waiting for the fallout leaves him shaking.

Yusaku’s expression turns a shade perplexed. “Huh?” He turns to face them.

“You know, a _baku_.” Ai drawls out the ‘u’ longer than strictly necessary. “A dream-eater.” Flame rises up from Takeru’s duel disk, arms crossed and nodding silently in confirmation. This revelation is absolutely absurd, Takeru _knows this_ , so the way Yusaku manages to school his expression back under a neutral mask is surprising. 

Finally, still blank-faced through the building tension, Yusaku turns his full attention back to Takeru. He does Takeru the same courtesy of looking him in the eyes when he offers, “well that’s. Something.”

“I know it doesn’t undo that I lied to you, but I _am_ sorry Yusaku. You’ve never given me any reason to withhold things, but I thought you’d freak out? And I should have just trusted you not to. I mean—”

“Takeru,” Yusaku interjects sharply just as Takeru takes another breath to continue. Then more gently, “stop.” 

Takeru wants to crawl out of his skin. To run, pick a fight, anything but sit trapped in shame and his rising dread. Rather than giving Takeru an excuse to indulge in any of those unspoken impulses, Yusaku sighs deeply and disappears from the room. 

The sound of water on glass—the kitchen, then—and the unintelligible susurration of voices. Ai. Yusaku. Flame clears his throat, reaches out to touch Takeru’s arm. “Try not to panic. I’m sure it will be fine.” Takeru nods absently; tries to remind himself that Flame is usually right; counts the seconds ( _1-2-3-4_ ) between his breaths and forces himself to stay calm. In the process, he loses the last of his waning focus on the room and startles beneath Yusaku’s hands as he rests them on his shoulders from behind. It feels like a lifetime of stillness waiting for him to speak.

“I think I understand why you wouldn’t, but I hate that you didn’t tell me,” he murmurs.

At this angle Takeru has to tip his head back to catch Yusaku’s eyes. “I hate it too,” he whispers before letting his head dip forward again. “I should have told you. The whole thing is just so invasive and I can’t just stop it.”

Yusaku slides his arms forward until his elbows rest on Takeru’s shoulders, forearms hanging loose in front of him and chin resting on top of his head. “I’m not going to say everything’s okay, because it’s _not_. But you can’t control what you can’t control.”

“Yusaku...”

“Don’t lie to me again,” he interrupts before Takeru can finish coming up with something to add.

He folds his hands over Yusaku’s arms. “Never,” he promises. There’s more to it in his head, noisy and jumbled, but Yusaku seems satisfied with the answer for now. The moment slips away as Takeru surrenders to the quiet—to Yusaku’s forearms pressing into his collarbones—and closes his eyes. “You’re taking this surprisingly well.”

\---

At the end of class, Yusaku grabs Takeru by the wrist and drags him out of the room before anyone stops to chat with him. _Someone_ always wants to talk to Takeru. Yusaku generally endures the intrusion, occasionally joining the conversation if prompted, even voluntarily for Aoi or Shima. In any case, he appreciates the escape despite his confusion. They settle in a quiet stairwell, sky black and rain battering the window above them. Yusaku props himself up against the wall, legs stretched out long above the top step; and Takeru tries to ignore the abrupt flare of heat in his stomach, unexpectedly distracted by the way he wants to climb over Yusaku’s lap and pin him there. Wrong time, wrong place.

“What have you seen?” Yusaku asks him as Takeru sits a few steps down on the other side of the space.

“Huh?” He looks back over his shoulder, catches Yusaku’s distant look. The furrow in his brow.

“My dreams. What have you seen?”

A cold that the chill of the stairwell can’t account for climbs up his spine, makes him turn away for the sake of his ability to tell the whole truth. “Well I _technically_ don’t see dreams. Just nightmares. Oh. Daymares too, I guess. And those other things, daymares when you aren’t actually sleeping.” He hums as he searches for the words. Snaps his fingers. “Flashbacks. Basically anything unpleasant your subconscious brain comes up with. But yeah. I don’t see dreams,” he finishes weakly.

“You realize you’re bad at dodging questions, right?” Yusaku chuckles.

Takeru grins awkwardly over his shoulder in response. “You really don’t hold back, do you? C’mon Yusaku, I’m compromised here.” 

“Takeru.” Yusaku stares him down. Takeru sighs, resigned to the conversation. He gets up, moves to sit on the stair just below Yusaku at a distance dangerous to his emotional fortitude. His heart rate spikes just thinking about what to say next. 

“You dream about white rooms. Losing duels.” He hesitates, turns sideways to face Yusaku more directly. “But mostly you dream about Revolver,” he adds softly, not sure what secrets his voice is prematurely spilling. Yusaku’s breath goes sharp.

“How much have you seen?” His tone is all forced calm. Ironically, Yusaku badly dodges the part about Revolver. His delivery is not as casual as he likely intended and Takeru braces for the worst.

“Only pieces, usually. Yours are complicated for me because a lot of the nightmares are mine too.” He bites at his cuticles. “I see more of yours than I’m used to. Like, more often and for longer. I don’t know how to explain it in a way that makes sense.”

He nods, goes on. “I haven’t had that many nightmares recently.”

“Yeah, you have.” Takeru corrects him with a frown. “Way more than usual, actually.”

Yusaku’s eyes widen in surprise. “Is that what you meant when you said it’s my dreams keeping you up?” 

Elbow on his knee and face resting on his palm, Takeru looks at Yusaku sideways. “Apparently there’s some limit to how much I can take and when you have so many. I guess they trigger mine.”

“Spillover,” Flame offers from his wrist. “If you pour too much into a vessel, eventually it overflows.” Takeru looks away, feeling at once heavy and untethered by the conversation. Watching himself lay blame where it’s not warranted or intended.

“I think,” he adds cautiously, “that lately you’re afraid all the time.”

Yusaku doesn’t acknowledge the comment, but the heat rising in his face is answer enough. They sit in strained silence while Yusaku considers his next question. “Are ours the same kind of nightmares?”

“Not always.” He sits up straight again. Fidgets, discontent and uncomfortable. “You’re making me nervous. Can you just ask whatever it is you're getting to?”

Yusaku braces a hand on Takeru's shoulder and leans over—slowly, offering space to decline—so he can kiss Takeru despite the risk of being caught. Takeru closes his eyes, reaches up to fold his hand around the back of Yusaku's neck and stretch into the touch. When Yusaku pulls back he murmurs, “I’m just trying to make sense of all of this," into the space between them.

Takeru kisses him again, soft and brief, before flashing him a wry grin. "I eat dreams, Yusaku. Nothing about that makes sense.”

\---

Of all the things Takeru hates about him, it’s the smug look on Revolver’s pretty face that he hates the most. The coy dipping of his head and peering up from under lashes, a smile slashed across his face that says he knows exactly what he’s doing push him over his limit. 

They’re both still angry in their own ways, wearing their quiet hurt like armor and burning beneath it. Yusaku’s anger is dying out in the hollow space he’s spent recent months slowly filling with something that looks like a life. These days all his resentment is growing weaker. The fading heat of his fury becomes ever colder, less smothering; his small spark of hope keeps the rest of him alive now that it's exposed with all his rage burning up the last of its fuel. Takeru’s anger though is still white-hot: a scattershot weapon he uses as cover to hide behind. A wildfire he has yet to extinguish. He probably has no intention of letting it die. Instead, Takeru treats it like a tool, letting his anger flare explosive and bright until it burns away the pain when it overwhelms him.

Yusaku watches him ignite. 

“Soulburner,” he cautions. The moment that Takeru snarls at him—at all of them—to stay out of his way, Yusaku wants nothing more than to reach out his hand to Takeru’s shoulder; to remind him to breathe. Even Ai wants him to intervene. Instead, he stays silent and apart. Takeru needs his rage to tear through him as he aims all his hurt at Revolver. Yusaku lets him burn; lets him wager Flame in his wreckless turmoil because Yusaku recognizes safety in the gravity of Revolver's remorse, in his tone, and in the unguarded way he yields to Soulburner’s demands.

It hurts to watch. Both of them. 

It hurts to see Revolver navigating Takeru’s pain under the weight of his guilt. Broken open along the same faultlines that tear Yusaku and Takeru both to pieces. Their rough edges frictive, destructive when all the old trauma grinds against their foundations and shakes each of them apart. They are, all of them, victims of the same crime, even if Revolver can’t see himself as anything but the one to blame. It hurts to feel the phantom of his own raw throat in empathy for Takeru’s screaming. To hear the broken catch of his voice imploring Revolver for _anything_ to help him move forward from his pain. This is a feeling he knows all too well: helpless grief that gnaws away at itself and lashes out in vain, all misdirected and desperate for relief. Only when Takeru crumbles under the weight of his misery—of Revolver’s inaction, his identity—does Yusaku intervene.

Of all the things Takeru hates about him, he decides after, it’s the pity in Revolver’s expression when he helps Yusaku pull the rug out from under him that he hates the most. Or, maybe it’s the sting of discovering his own ignorance. He lets himself blame Revolver for it so he can look Yusaku in the eyes again without the unbearable itch for a fight. An impulse for violence he thought he left in the ocean at his back.

His throat is inexplicably sore for all that his screaming was in VRAINS, and Takeru wonders a bit self-consciously if his body was hysterical in the back closet of Cafe Nagi without him. Kusanagi doesn’t mention it it was. He feels gutted. Empty and boneless and filleted by his own sharp edges. That Yusaku’s history with Revolver was news to Ghost Girl and Blue Maiden too only makes it hurt more profoundly. Even when Yusaku could have explained it to him, _any of it_ , he gave Takeru nothing. Left him to be blindsided and humiliated by his own pain. All the turmoil in him narrows down to a question he can’t ask: _w_ _e’re closer than that, aren’t we?_ A question he won't ask because he doesn't think he can bear the truth.

He is still smoldering and the ache in his chest is sharp.

The taste of bile rises on the back of Takeru’s tongue thinking about the way more emotion bloomed across Yusaku’s ( _Playmaker’s_ ) features in one story about Kougami Ryouken—no _, Revolver_ —than he has seen in all the months they’ve been closer than arms reach of one another. With nothing else to occupy his mind, he dwells on the details in silence. Turns them over and over until they connect to every thread left hanging loose in the space between Yusaku’s dreams and Takeru’s grasp on them. The fear of loss, the longing that bleeds over into Takeru’s own nightmares is the taste of burnt sugar he could never account for. In the shape of those stolen nightmares, Takeru understands for the first time why his own _wanting_ always aches the way it does. 

Yusaku’s feelings burn like salt in his wounds. 

Nails biting into his palms and he _wants_ to be angry with Yusaku. Instead, the fire’s all gone out of him, extinguished with his bruised pride and Revolver’s refusal to fight. Instead, he’s just…hollow. Beneath the guttered heat of anger, the urge to gather up the stiff cotton of Yusaku’s uniform shirt beneath his fingers and make him _feel_ Takeru’s hurt in every pulled stitch and trembling nerve is still there. As if the distance between their feelings could be physically closed. Instead he bites his tongue until the sharp tang of copper stops the demands from spilling out of his open mouth. Without an ounce of skill to help Yusaku and Kusanagi build the Tower program, Takeru is left with nothing but the dull roar in his ears, his clenched teeth, the mesmerizing rhythm of Yusaku’s fingers flicking across the keyboard screen. 

Beneath the white noise he can feel dark threads knotting themselves up into something ugly behind his ribs. He can’t taste his own dreams, but he thinks this one would probably be bitter. Hot. Too large a gulp of burnt coffee bubbled in his throat as he forces it down. _Why didn’t you tell me you knew who saved us? Why didn’t you tell me that he mattered so much?_ The tension races through him with teeth and claw. The nerves in his limbs set his skin unpleasantly ablaze and numb in turn, just shy of painful: stress ratcheting up his allodynia beyond the low-level annoyance plaguing him for the better part of the week. His palms sting where his nails break skin beneath the tight clench of his fists. His jaw hurts. 

Flame asks him to step outside into the cold when he finally worries his raw lip until it splits in his jittery energy. While Takeru tries to gain control of himself again, Flame reasons, “maybe he wanted to apologize to you.”

The idea fits cleanly in the spaces between all the confusion in him. “That’s why he dueled like that?” he muses.

“Humans don’t speak their true feelings out loud,” Flame accuses gently. “Or am I wrong?” 

Takeru concedes, “you understand humans better than me,” helpless and fond. Flame’s words are cool water on the embers still glowing hot. In the quiet he feels his limbs loosen by degrees, until the weight of the day and the cold wind settles into him as a bone-deep weariness. 

“I’m so tired, Flame.”

“Perhaps we should go.”

“Yeah,” he nods slowly. “Yeah I think maybe we should.”

Takeru’s shoes scrape the top step as he lets himself back into the truck and Yusaku pulls his attention away from the screen at the sound. His spine is stiff and he arches back, stretches his arms over the head, using the opportunity to take in the angle of Takeru’s shoulders and the expression painted across his features. With some small measure of relief Yusaku notes that Takeru is no longer bleeding fury in his every movement.

“I’m going to head home,” Takeru announces in a measured tone. He doesn’t look at either of them, and that raises an alarm in Yusaku.

“Let me drive you at least,” Kusanagi offers. If he also notices the shift in Takeru he does a better job of hiding it than Yusaku.

“No no, you two have work to do.” He catches the twist to Takeru’s mouth as he leans over to gather his bag from the floor. It’s the same expression he wore the day after Yusaku audienced his nightmare. Unhappy, maybe. “I can manage,” he insists. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He continues to avoid looking at both of them as he heads for the door. Sometimes he doesn’t know what to do with Takeru’s feelings—especially without knowing his own degree of involvement—but he's certain that letting Takeru leave like this would be the wrong way to handle them.

“Give me a second,” Yusaku offers over his shoulder to Kusanagi. He pushes up from the low seat at the console and follows close on Takeru’s heels. The cold outside startles him briefly, a sharp blast of chill across his skin that he ignores. He suppresses a shiver as he closes up the warmth of the truck behind him. “Wait!” he calls after Takeru, jogging to catch up and taking him by the hand. “Are you—” he starts, falters, unsure how to finish a question when he doesn’t know what he’s trying to ask. Mercifully, Takeru stops.

“No,” Takeru replies simply, pulls his hand away. Yusaku isn’t sure what question Takeru is answering, but he doubts it matters if the answer is the same. He steps around into Takeru’s line of sight.

“You’re...bothered. Upset? About Ryouken.”

Takeru cringes, throat closed up around the way Yusaku says _Ryouken_. “Is that a question?” Yusaku levels him an unimpressed look at his less than subtle dodge. Takeru closes his eyes. “Yes,” the word choked out. That isn’t everything but it’s enough. Right now it’s the most substantial anyway.

For the life of him he can't understand why Yusaku sounds baffled when he asks, “why?”

 _Because you want_ him _._ “The way your dreams always feel when he walks away,” he trails off a moment. “All this time I’ve been afraid of that emptiness he leaves behind and it’s so much worse than I thought. He’s important to you in a way that never made sense. And now I finally understand why you’re afraid to lose him.” A humorless laugh escapes him as he takes in the unusually slack set of Yusaku’s mouth and his quickly shuttering expression.

“I didn’t realize you already knew that much,” Yusaku murmurs, casts his eyes down. 

“Yeah well, I didn’t before. No one was ever supposed to figure it out, right? That you’re in love with the enemy? Least of all _me_. I wish I could unsee it,” he finishes blandly. Yusaku remains silent—no denial to offer—though he at least shows some remorse over it, shoulders hunched until he looks small with his eyes guiltily averted. Takeru turns away from him and sighs, “I wish you’d told me. You _should_ have told me.”

“I should have.”

“Fuck. Is this what it felt like when I finally told you about the dreams?” He scrubs his hand over his face and growls out his frustration. Turning back to fully face Yusaku, unflinchingly direct in a way Takeru rarely is, he lashes out. Snaps, “Whatever. I _am_ going to follow you, despite my feelings about the whole...Revolver thing,” he adds with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“How do you—”

“Angry and hurt and tired,” Takeru interrupts in the rough way he speaks when he forgets to be polite. Sighs, “I’m _really_ tired, Yusaku.” 

“Takeru.”

He murmurs, “not now, yeah.” It’s not a question. Non-negotiable. “I need sleep. To pull myself together. I don’t know,” he huffs. “Anything but this.”

“I…” Yusaku’s silence falls heavy on Takeru’s shoulders. 

The cold night air is drying his throat and scratching his voice further. He looks down at his feet, notices one of his shoes coming unlaced. He can’t muster the motivation to do anything about it. “I feel like I’m unraveling,” Takeru confides, whispered mostly to himself. “One lonely dream at a time.” Standing there in the cold quiet, Yusaku reaches for Takeru’s hand again, squeezes it once. Something bitter hits the back of his throat at the touch, but the distance between Takeru’s mind and body keep him from reacting. 

“Let me take you back home.” Takeru doesn’t look at him but he nods at the request. “Wait here.” Yusaku turns back, disappears into the back of the Cafe Nagi truck.

Takeru’s feet are growing cold by the time Yusaku reemerges in a spill of soft warm light, bundled up in his jacket and scarf with his bag in hand. When he closes the door—behind his promise to Kusanagi to be back tomorrow as quickly as possible—the dark weave of the scarf casts his skin pale in the weak street light. Exaggerates the bruising under his eyes. He looks as tired as Takeru feels. They walk in step, silence thick between them. Their hands brush, barely-there as Yusaku feels him out, inexperienced in asking for what he wants amidst tension. Maybe a little afraid of Takeru pushing him away if he breaks the silence; Takeru can only guess at moments like this. Still, he presses his palm against Yusaku’s despite how it stings at the contact, and curls fingers around the back of his hand. Fingers cold against his skin. Yusaku folds his hand up around Takeru’s and follows him through the darkness to the train station. They ride back to Takeru’s apartment with fingers knotted together on the seat between them. Takeru tilts his head back and closes his eyes. With the company he’s content to nap on the short ride, lulled by the rhythm of the train over tracks and the brush of Yusaku’s thumb over his knuckles as he idly maps out the small features of Takeru’s hand.

\---

In the darkness beneath Takeru’s blankets they lay facing one another, knees jostling. Blind in the darkness Yusaku reaches for him and Takeru scoots closer. Let’s Yusaku cup his face in cool hands and kiss him. Gentle, careful, something like _sorry_. He holds on to Yusaku’s forearm and strokes his thumb over the curve of it. Opens beneath his lips and deepens their kiss. Moves close enough to slot their knees together, to slide his hands from arm to shoulder to ribs. Encouraged by the weight of Takeru’s hands on him and newly bold, Yusaku’s hands wander and Takeru reignites when they find his bare skin. 

This is something new, something terrifying in ways nightmares never are. 

They are fresh heartache; unfamiliar hunger, aching and desperate and marked by the brush of mouths on salt skin, hands combing through hair; awkwardly tugging off clothing to trace the hard angles and soft edges of one another. The damp tangle of sheets impedes their limbs and they fumble. Yusaku gasping against his jaw, shaking beneath Takeru’s feverish touch and Takeru drowns, anchored by the foreign sweetness of Yusaku’s hands. The moment is blinding and exhilarating and swallowed up by the dark of the room and the high of unfocused desire receding into the edges of sleep.

Later, in the early hours of the morning, Takeru wakes to Yusaku’s fear. The dream is a dry burnt thing. Bitter and acrid like charcoal. When he reaches out to wake him—hand on his hip with a gentle nudge—he sees his own face: defeated and lost beyond Yusaku’s reach, Lightning stealing his data like he took Jin’s. He sees Yusaku’s dread shaped as Revolver in threes: double-crossing them, losing, leaving.

“Yusaku. Hey, wake up. You’re dreaming.” Speaking sets him into a coughing fit, the dream flaking at the back of his throat and half in his lungs. He swings his legs out of bed and folds over on himself, head between his knees. It wakes Yusaku with a start, slow to register Takeru’s distress.

“Takeru?” Hands splayed across his back.

“I’m fine.” Hoarse, another round of coughing.

“What hap—”

“It’s fine,” he wheezes. “Just a dream.” When his lungs quiet and he can breathe again, he settles back into bed with a groan, scrubs his watering eyes dry. 

Yusaku curls onto his side facing Takeru and tucks feet between his. “Was it mine?”

“Yeah,” rasped out unpleasantly.

Yusaku whispers, “sorry,” from across the pillow.

“‘s not your fault.” His hand beneath the pillow presses its fullness into his cheek, muffles his words. 

The press of fingers cradled at the base of his skull and brushed behind his ear. “Not just about the dream.”

“I know,” Takeru whispers back in the darkness. 

“What was it?”

“Losing more of us to Lightning.” The incomplete truth settles between them in the quiet, an understanding that what comes next is a fight they might not come back from. He brushes Yusaku’s hair off his face, tucks it behind his ear. “Let’s just both make it home.”


	3. with you on my shoulders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the part where all the season 3 hurt looms in the distance and we ignore it in favor of a happy ending.

Takeru knows it’s over for him before Bohman finishes listing all the ways this combo is Takeru’s unmaking. Lifepoints crash, zero cracking him open at every invisible seam. The way it feels for data to break, he remembers it from Yusaku’s dreams, but it’s so much worse first-hand. From the point of shatter to the point when his data coalesces back into something conscious is a continuous flash of searing pain. Bright behind his eyelids and knife-sharp through his limbs. There’s a moment of disorientation while Takeru makes sense of being alive again, and on its heels is raw guilt; self-loathing for being unable to keep his promise to Flame and failing to help Playmaker against Bohman. All the same, Takeru allows himself to exult in Playmaker’s hard-won victory but keeps the careful space that stops him from latching onto Playmaker. No matter how flayed open Takeru feels without the weight of another person in his orbit, he resists the urge to close the distance between his empty hands and Playmaker’s. They don’t touch here in VRAINS, not like that.

Once again, Takeru comes home empty-handed and gutted clean. They part ways quietly.

Yusaku doesn’t call.

Takeru knows it isn’t meant to be cruel—Yusaku is socially challenged, not intentionally unkind—but it aches just the same. His duel disk is empty and his heart sits precariously close to collapsing into the place where Flame used to be. Dreaming eats him alive, his own nightmares choking him into wakefulness. Kept up night after night breathless and miserable; but the weight of his grief keeps him clinging to stubborn pride, sinking into his hurt and refusing to be the one to reach out. They fall together into the stale routine of being nothing but _classmates_ and Takeru starves in all but the literal sense. Yusaku doesn’t call and doesn’t call and still doesn’t call.

Takeru doesn’t call either. 

\---

Kusanagi greets him with a wide smile, genuinely pleased to see him. “Takeru where have you been lately? Come grab a coffee.”

“Thanks Kusanagi, but I don’t have time today.” He looks away when he says it, unable—unwilling—to meet Kusanagi’s inquisitive look. Kusanagi disappears into the truck and comes around from the back door to talk without the grill between them. “Is Yusaku around?”

Kusanagi wipes his hands on the apron around his waist, smile softer. Glances up at the heavy grey sky. It’s almost poetic the way the weather puts Takeru’s feelings on display. “He’s due to come by soon I think.” 

“Well, I may as well say this now then. Thank you.” Takeru bows deeply at the waist, awkward and formal. “For everything you’ve done for me since I’ve come to Den City. You didn’t have to take care of me like you have and it means so much.”

“Woah woah. Where’s this coming from?” Alarmed, Kusanagi stands him back up properly with hands on both of Takeru’s shoulders. 

For a moment Kusanagi’s searching leaves Takeru paralyzed. For a moment he questions his choice to go, whether this is really what he wants. “I’m going back home,” he confesses, “and I didn’t want to leave without thanking you properly.” It isn’t, he decides.

Patting Takeru’s shoulders Kusanagi assures him, “there’s no need for all that, but you’re welcome anyway.” The certainty of his reply falters into a frown. “Does Yusaku know?” 

Takeru averts his gaze again and scratches his arm awkwardly. “Ah, no. There hasn’t been a good time.” He shakes his head and sighs. The wind picks up and muffles his words. “Truthfully, Kusanagi, I haven’t had the courage to tell him." The cowardice in him—without Flame to force his bravery—makes Takeru’s skin crawl.

“The courage to tell me what?” Yusaku asks, setting his bag down on a nearby table as he joins them. Takeru visibly startles, flinching, and wraps his arms around his ribs as if doing so could possibly hold him together just then.

“And with that,” Kusanagi declares, “I have a grill to tend,” as he turns on his heel to return to the truck. “See you around, Takeru.” He takes all the sound with him; silence only broken by distant voices in the courtyard.

“Takeru?” Yusaku prompts once Kusanagi is out of earshot.

The breath Takeru draws shudders through his teeth while he gathers the fortitude to speak. “I’m going home,” nearly whispered.

“Home,” Yusaku repeats. His face grows troubled as if presented with a puzzle he can’t work out yet. Eyes narrowed, mouth pinched and turned down at the edges. 

“Back to my grandparents’ house, Yusaku.” His eyes go wide as the understanding clicks into place. Instead of a reply, Yusaku frowns and clenches his fists. Takeru knows this look, recognizes the fragments of anger and hurt and confusion tangled up in whatever complicated knot is rooted in Yusaku’s heart. In dreams it tastes sharply acidic, thin and insubstantial and caught more as a scent forced deep into his lungs.

“I thought,” Yusaku begins.

“So did I.”

Something snaps in Yusaku, stepping into his space to kiss Takeru. Desperate in a newly distressing way. When they break, his hands remain cupped around Takeru’s cheeks and he’s shaking so hard it blurs Takeru’s vision. Foreheads pressed together. Wild-eyed and panicked, Yusaku pleads, “don’t you leave too. _Stay_.”

It isn’t an answer, not properly, when Takeru chokes out, “where have you been these last few months?”

“ _Here_ ,” Yusaku insists. “I’ve been here.”

Despite how much he wants to cave, to take Yusaku’s apology and the misery from off his face, Takeru made the choice already. He can’t stay amidst all these broken pieces from months of their slow fracture on a whim. “Yusaku,” he pleads, hears it in his voice even if it wasn’t his intent, “I can’t afford to miss my train.” Literally. Emotionally.

There’s distance between them already, and the thought of staying in its wake frightens him beyond his capacity to face alone. And he is alone, even with Yusaku within breathing distance. Pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth—letting his hand linger on Yusaku’s waist for an inadvisable moment longer—Takeru leaves without saying goodbye. Flame’s words echo in his head, _that was an uncharacteristically cowardly exit_. 

“Apparently it’s exactly in character,” he mutters to himself as he embraces the fear and walks away.

\---

He uses the braking of the train at a stop as an excuse to jostle the old woman sitting next to him. Guilt turns his stomach—for disturbing her—even as he apologizes politely and scoots over to give her more space. She was dreaming of her own death and the dream is insubstantial, no taste or texture. It’s nothing but tap water, minimally refreshing after having gone hungry since their conflict with Bohman ended. It’s every other nightmare he’ll swallow down now that he’s walked away. After living off Yusaku’s dreams for so long, retreating to his old means still feels like starving.

\---

Yusaku wakes with a jolt, shivering and sweat-soaked. His breaths come ragged and sharp and he sees white behind his eyes every time he blinks. The dream lands heavy, leaves him invisibly bruised and shaken. Amid the dreadful remnants of sleep, his mind is occupied with an aching want for Takeru within reach. Not just for the literal relief of his nightmares either. Without him Yusaku curls in on himself with knees tucked up tight to his chest and hopes the pressure will ease the nausea and loneliness. 

Through the day—and every one like it that follows—he remains listless. Adrift. His life suddenly without clear purpose and notably duller. Kusanagi introduces him to Jin, offers him as much work as he feels like putting in at Cafe Nagi. The effort is appreciated, but it does nothing to fill the void of Takeru’s absence, the hungry way it eats away at him, or the gnawing shame beneath. Takeru doesn’t reach out and neither does he. 

A memory plagues him: Takeru’s mournful “ _where have you been_ ” echoing around in the emptiness. It all feels like a mistake. A nightmare all its own.

“Yusaku, the hot dogs!” Kusanagi shouts, pushing him none too gently aside to put out the burning remains of the customer’s order. 

Yusaku stumbles a bit over his own feet, not focused enough to keep up with the momentum, dropping heavy into Kusanagi’s console seat. He watches Kusanagi grill the order again and apologize to the customer from outside his body. Feels untethered and distant. 

“What is going on with you today?” Kusanagi asks, concerned and clearly trying to suppress his irritation. Yusaku thinks it must be a kindness intended for him.

“Kusanagi, I think I made a mistake,” he hears himself murmur. That sounds right.

\---

“Takeru. Have you thought about going back?” His grandmother hands him a cup of tea and sits _seiza_ across from him. Nostalgia like a sucker punch: the grassy smell and smooth straw ridges of the tatami beneath his fingers; the thin line of chipped paint through the sakura painted on her favorite teacup; her advice-voice. 

It takes a moment to catch up to the words from beneath the sense memory. “What for?”

“I do not know, sweetheart,” she frowns and her nose scrunches up the way it always does with her concern. “Only that you look as though you are searching for something you cannot find.”

“I’m fine gran, really,” he insists, blowing at the steam across the surface of his tea. He watches the dust motes floating in the shaft of sunlight through the open _shoji_. Refuses to think about all the reasons he wants to and all the reasons why he won’t. 

She sighs placidly, shakes her head, and reaches out to pat his hands gently as if he was still the child he left here when he went to Den City.

\---

Emma’s voice echoes beneath his thoughts: _you’re just smart enough to be this kind of stupid._ Kusanagi’s— _he’s not the type who would choose to be alone_ —lingers behind the first sting _._ As he waits for someone to answer the door, Yusaku feels his throat knot up with pressure against his breathing and his hands clasp tightly together behind his back to stop their trembling.

“Takeru! You have a guest.”

“Oi, who is it?” He’s lounging against the low table watching television, tatami cool under his feet and the sea breeze ringing a chime through the open doorway.

“Do not ‘oi’ your grandfather,” his grandmother scolds.

Yusaku greets Takeru while his back is turned. “It’s been a while.” 

He whips around fast enough that it twinges a nerve in his neck. “Yusaku,” he doesn’t recognize his own voice, strangled and thin. Behind Yusaku, something passes over his grandfather’s face before Takeru can catalog it, there and gone behind the pleasantly neutral expression he walked in wearing. For a moment he panics, mind blank with the way his thoughts begin racing. “We’re going for a walk,” he announces to none of them in particular, levering himself to his feet. He takes Yusaku by the wrist and marches them right back out the way he came.

His fingers ache, white-knuckled and shoved deep into his pockets with nails biting into the scars in his palms. Yusaku trails him in silence as they walk. Between his ears is nothing but white noise and the scuff of their feet in the gravel as it gives way to shells and sand. When they reach the edge of the beach, he stops, turns to finally face Yusaku. 

“I don’t know what to say,” Takeru offers as a means of breaking the silence. They haven’t spoken since he left at the winter holiday, save for a text message marking the new year. “Why are you here?”

“I wanted to see you,” comes out sounding helpless with Yusaku’s resigned shrug.

“You could have mentioned you were coming.”

“I was afraid of what you’d say.” Takeru can’t fathom what he’d have said then and words still fail him now. So he says nothing. “Kusanagi and Aoi told me to tell you ‘hello,’” Yusaku adds.

“Come on,” Takeru says without acknowledging that for now, gesturing for Yusaku to follow. Falling back into a strained silence, sand muffling the sound of their feet, they climb the crumbling concrete steps up to the viewpoint where Kiku introduced him to Playmaker. 

Takeru lets his feet dangle over the edge and lays back with a hand behind his head, a forearm thrown over his eyes. Midday sun is always painfully bright even behind closed eyes. It’s a good excuse but really he just isn’t prepared to look at Yusaku yet. A brief moment lapses before Takeru feels more than hears Yusaku settle down beside him. He smells the remnants of a bad dream beneath Yusaku’s soap and the salt air.

“What did you dream about?” He asks, wiggles his fingers pointedly hoping Yusaku gets his meaning. It’s selfish, still hungry for something substantial despite his taste improving since he’d arrived back home; but it’s not as if he’d let Yusaku suffer nightmares even if he _wasn’t_ half starved all the time. Yusaku’s hand is hesitant on his, fingers spread lightly across the span of his palm and his thumb idly skimming Takeru’s fingers.

A single clear image, so distinct Takeru is immediately certain this is the entirety of the dream. Like mochi, sticky and pliant. Suffocating. He can’t chew it exactly, it doesn’t work like that, so he tries his best to force it down. But it’s slow, tedious, and all he can see behind his eyes is Yusaku alone in the white room with an empty duel disk, staring off into the middle distance. There’s something disquieting about how nothing happens, just Yusaku— _his_ Yusaku, not the lost child—leaning dead-eyed against a wall. The whole thing leaves Takeru feeling empty anew.

“Waking up from that gets confusing sometimes,” Yusaku sighs as the last of the dream leaves him. Takeru never asked him if he can actually feel the dreams go. Maybe this one was just that heavy. “I had to move my bed by the window so I’d be able to tell the difference faster.”

Takeru’s heart seizes up in his chest at that and he isn’t sure what part of all the dream stuff here hurts. Or _why_ it hurts. 

“Why are you here?” Takeru asks again, the dream still tight in his throat and forcing his voice to the edge of a wheeze. On a whim, he turns his wrist to curl his hand around Yusaku’s. The angle is awkward, but Yusaku adjusts to hold his hand without missing a beat. Relief, unexpected, races through him.

“This went wrong. Us, I mean. It might have been my fault? I don’t know.” He breathes deeply, audibly. When he says, “I missed you,” he sounds earnest, certain of this unlike all the rest.

Takeru is equally sure of that feeling but doesn’t say as much. He’s not intending to be difficult, but he feels unstable and upended by Yusaku appearing on his doorstep without warning. “What makes you think it’s your fault?” With his arm still over his eyes he misses Yusaku’s rueful smile.

“I’ve been given some perspective,” he murmurs, “that maybe I didn’t understand you as well as I thought I did.” 

Takeru cracks an eye open from beneath the shade of his arm to gauge Yusaku’s body language. Iron in his spine, but it’s the kind of tense that comes from trying to waylay anxious reflexes—so you’ll move but you won’t fly or fight. “Go on.”

“You seemed upset and I thought you needed some space. But I think I might have given you too much. Or,” he stumbles over his words, “more than you wanted at least.” Rather than reply, and rather than continue, they both let a few minutes pass by with nothing but the sound of water crashing against the concrete.

“Everything hurt too much to let my pride go too,” Takeru says whisper-soft above the spray of the waves. His face is boiling and he can’t blame it all on the summer heat. “I knew you didn’t get it, but I didn’t actually ask for what I wanted either.” He hopes that Yusaku doesn’t read that as an accusation when it’s not. Mostly. There’s some resentment he hadn’t noticed was festering in him before this moment.

“It’s not just that, Takeru. My nightmares were so bad after we came back.” Takeru’s stomach clenches uncomfortably and his heart lodges in his chest as he braces for the direction the conversation is heading. Yusaku continues. “They were all new ones and I thought I shouldn’t burden you with it in case yours were already bad on their own too. So I tried not to let you get close enough to notice.”

Not a single day has passed that didn’t find Takeru worried that this oddity of his would become a problem for them. This isn’t what he expected to happen—not that he had a concrete idea of what would go wrong—but it hurts exactly like Takeru knew it would. That pain is sharp behind his ribs, stings his eyes where they’re clenched shut beneath his forearm. “Yusaku. That’s. You should have let me take them.” He doesn’t get a response and assumes it means Yusaku feels sufficiently guilty to not argue. Yusaku’s guilt isn’t enough to soothe Takeru’s hurt, regrettably. 

Yusaku slips his hand from the hold and gently rakes his fingers through Takeru’s hair instead. “You were lonely, weren’t you.” It isn’t a question, and he says it like it’s just dawning on him at that moment. Takeru figures it probably is the first time Yusaku fully grasped where it went wrong for them. “I could have been there but I wasn’t. I’m sorry,” he murmurs.

Takeru’s voice is unsteady when he admits, “you left me lonely _before_ you disappeared, Yusaku.” And it is openly an accusation this time.

“Ryouken?” Yusaku hazards.

“Ryouken,” he confirms. “You put so much into your feelings for him, even when I was right next to you.” In the wake of putting words to his hurt, Takeru appreciates for the first time all the specific ways a heart can break at once.

“It doesn’t change how I feel about you.” Something in his voice sounds confused. 

“‘m not jealous, Yusaku. If that’s what you think.” If Takeru was feeling more generous he might attempt to make his feelings clearer to Yusaku. Instead, he sighs “it just hurts.” Squeezes his eyes tightly closed against the nauseating swell of loss—the fear of it—the thought of Ryouken always drags out of him. Mumbles, “I’m _still_ lonely.”

Yusaku lifting Takeru’s hand from his eyes and the shadow that passes over him are the only warning Takeru has before he’s being kissed. It’s soft and so cautious Takeru is surprised Yusaku didn’t ask first. After all the times Takeru told him to just go for it—that he’d tell him if he ever wanted to opt-out—maybe it’s some sort of brave for him to move without being driven by panic. Takeru spreads his palm against the back of Yusaku’s head and tangles his fingers into his hair, holds on even as Yusaku pulls back far enough to murmur, “I’ve missed you this whole time,” against his lips.

\---

“Sorry ‘bout rushing out like that,” Takeru smiles sheepishly at his grandparents. “This is my friend from Den City.”

“Yusaku Fujiki. It’s nice to meet you,” he introduces himself with a bow. Takeru stifles a giggle having never seen Yusaku perform anything remotely resembling a formal social norm.

“It is wonderful to meet you, Yusaku,” Takeru’s grandmother greets with a small bow of her own. “I suppose you will be staying with us this evening?”

“Thank you for the offer, but I wasn’t planning to stay.”

“Nonsense, dear. The last train left 20 minutes ago and we do not have so much as a youth hostel here.” Yusaku blanches and turns to look at Takeru, suspicious.

“Oh is it that late already?” Takeru feigns ignorance. “We would have hurried back if I realized you were going to miss the train.” It’s Takeru’s grandfather who snorts at that, and Yusaku glares at Takeru properly.

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” Yusaku mumbles dutifully, still scowling at Takeru and flushing pink up the back of his neck.

“I am sure you realize Takeru arranged for this to happen,” his grandmother chuckles. “No inconvenience to us. I only hope you had nowhere important to be.”

“Thank you.”

After dinner, after conversation that visibly melts the defensive edges from Yusaku, Takeru’s grandmother shoos Yusaku off to the bath while Takeru lingers in the kitchen to clean up the mess from dinner. When she returns they work in companionable quiet. The sound of her hands scrubbing bowls in the sink of soapy water feels nostalgic even while he’s present with it.

“Sweetheart, does he know what you are?”

“Yes.” Takeru takes the clean bowl from her hands to dry. Chews on his lip while he gathers his thoughts. “Gran?”

“Hm?”

“Yusaku. Before I left,” he hesitates. It spills out, and he can't stop once he starts. “He was avoiding me because he didn’t want to burden me with his nightmares. He has the same dreams about the incident I do and they make mine worse. And it gets hard to tell them apart sometimes.” She hands him another bowl to dry and he pauses to mull over his feelings. “It’s all so complicated, gran,” he groans. “I’ve told him so many times that it doesn’t matter. He _knows_ that and he still pushed me away.”

She clicks her tongue, stilling in her work. “Takeru,” she says gently. “There is nothing to be done for your dreaming. But you two need to discuss this. All of it.”

“Go figure,” he says wryly. More than a little dread seeping into his bones. 

She nudges him with her hip, smiling. “I suppose it is fortunate then that he came after you, is it not?”

Yusaku is already burrowed into Takeru’s bed when he gets done in the bath, a book stolen from Takeru’s shelf held open above his face. He continues to thumb through the pages after Takeru climbs under the sheets with him, throws an arm over his chest and presses his lips to the top of Yusaku’s shoulder. Dressed in Takeru’s clothes, washed in his soap and shampoo, Yusaku smells like _home_. Unexpected, the way it loosens something in Takeru’s chest: a heated and possessive thing, novel and thrilling with want. Yusaku hums quizzically when Takeru lifts his head to nip at Yusaku’s collarbone through shirt fabric. Slips the book from Yusaku’s hands, drops it backward over the edge of the bed. 

“What are—” Yusaku cuts himself short when Takeru swings a leg over his waist. Stills while Takeru braces his elbows beside Yusaku’s head, close enough that their noses brush and Yusaku goes a bit crosseyed trying to focus on Takeru’s face.

“Hey,” Takeru says softly, grinning.

“Hi.” Yusaku tilts his head back to brush his lips against Takeru’s. A question. An answer maybe. An offer, in any case, and Takeru takes what he’s been given. There’s a map between their hands that makes it easy to relearn the shape of Takeru’s teeth and the easy way Ysuaku’s skin gives way to bruising beneath Takeru’s mouth. Legs tangled and hands left to wander like they haven’t spent the miles and the last half a year away. Every kiss Takeru returns is slow and soft anyway. 

Long after Yusaku’s breathing evens into the heavy cadence of dreamless sleep, Takeru remains awake and staring at the ceiling. Everything tumbling through his head too loud and disorderly, it keeps him from sleep and he wanders out into the empty house. Another night—it could have been a lifetime ago for how much Takeru misses it—Flame would be up with him. The hurt feels fresh tonight as he fills a glass with water and slides open the door to sit on the porch, staring out into the empty garden alone without Flame’s voice to fill the space. He forces himself to breathe evenly. Counting inhales and exhales to stave off the panic that he feels at the periphery of everything. Maybe it’s just that he’s raw from Yusaku’s presence but the need to mourn hasn’t been this intense in quite a while. 

His thoughts are interrupted by the heavy thump of footsteps on the tatami floor behind him. Takeru waits as his grandfather sits down beside him. A rare smile graces his mouth when he says, “I don’t recall the last time you looked so much like yourself, Takeru.”

“What do you mean?”

“The angry fearful creature you lived as for so many years was never you. Before you left I thought I saw a piece of the real Takeru you had buried beneath all your pain. I hoped Den City would help you find a way out from under all that. And you did come home to us a version of yourself that seemed more whole.” He turns to look at Takeru then. “However, you have looked lost since the moment you arrived.”

“Gran said something like that the other day. That I looked like I couldn’t find something.”

“I think perhaps you should return to Den City, son.”

“What I went there for is over now,” he falters, perplexed. “I don’t have a reason to go back.”

“No? What more does this village have to offer you?” His grandfather looks out over the garden. “Certainly not that boy who found you beneath all that hurt you left with.”

“I don’t understand.” Embarrassed heat floods his neck, the lie thin, obvious.

“Don’t play stupid, boy. The moment you laid eyes on him I saw _Takeru_ again. Maybe it won’t last. Maybe it will. But you look at him like a map to somewhere you are supposed to be right now.” His palm is heavy when he rests it on Takeru’s shoulder. “You should consider it, Takeru. Good maps are hard to find.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be _telling_ me what to do?” The question comes out in a voice far too small and weak, betraying his uncertainty. 

“I am telling you that this is your home and it always will be, but your home is not the place you found _yourself_. As long as you’re going to school and maintaining your studies I see no meaningful difference between the two. You have earned the responsibility of choosing for yourself what is best this time.”

“I’ll think about it. Thanks, grandad.” They sit together in silence a while, his grandfather eventually hoisting himself to standing. He ruffles Takeru’s hair affectionately as he takes leave for sleep. 

Takeru keeps company with the sunrise. Joints stiff with the morning chill and craving the warm curve of Yusaku’s waist beneath his arm, but he finds himself not yet ready to move all the same. From the kitchen the smell of the gas stove and the sounds of his grandmother starting the day filter out to him: the chime of the rice cooker starting, cast iron and ceramic clicking upon the counter, her tremulous singing.

Yusaku’s steps are light, quiet as he shuffles out of his slippers in the doorway to join him. Mist still clings to the shadowed corners of the garden and he speaks softly as though it might disrupt something otherwise. “Kusanagi called.” In reply, Takeru hums a querying sound. “Zaizen wants to meet with the three of us.”

“Something’s happened?”

“Apparently.” Yusaku hesitates a moment before using Takeru’s shoulder for support as he sinks down beside him. The coffee Yusaku offers across the space between them smells rich and bitter, and if any nightmares linger on him, the drink masks their signature. Voice cautious, quiet, Yusaku asks, “will you come with me?” 

Takeru threads his fingers through the handle, lets the heat bleed into his fingertips as he accepts the mug. Without looking, he sets it down beside him on the porch and leans into Yusaku’s space, his arm slipped behind Yusaku’s back to brace his weight with a hand pressed to the rough wood. “I was planning to stay here, but I may have had some help in changing my mind,” he murmurs. He watches Yusaku’s eyelashes fan out across his cheek when he closes his eyes, meets Takeru halfway for the kiss. They have too much left to discuss for Takeru to wait it out before making a choice. Waiting it out is what brought them to this moment in the first place. “I think I want to see this through instead.”

Yusaku smiles, tips forward to rest his forehead against the curve of Takeru’s shoulder. “When will you leave then?”

Takeru reaches for the mug again, leaves Yusaku to wait while Takeru takes a moment to let the coffee work its heat through him. He holds the warm ceramic between his hands, turns his face to rest his temple on the crown of Yusaku’s head. Replies, “on the next train with you,” easy as dreaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was 95% done two months ago when I posted chapter 2, so I guess it's about time I finally finished it. ~~This is why I never write chaptered fics...~~
> 
> Thanks for sticking around until the end!

**Author's Note:**

> [where the skies end](https://youtu.be/uvfnLzgdM4s)


End file.
